Memoir ghostwriting services that protect your voice and your name

Memory is unreliable, and your memoir ghostwriter expects it. We check every date and fact against the documents you share, such as letters, photos, calendars, court records and medical files, and flag gaps during the interviews, not after the draft. When memory and record disagree, you decide which version goes in the book. Some authors note the difference openly. Others use the documented version. Both are accepted in memoir, and the choice is yours.

Hiring a memoir ghostwriter at AuthorWings costs 68¢ a word, from 20,000 words: $13,600 for 20,000 words, $34,000 for 50,000 and $61,200 for 90,000. Every memoir includes recorded voice interviews, all four editing levels and 100% of the rights on final payment, and every word is written by a human writer. Cover, formatting and publishing are separate, or included in a Launch-Ready Bundle. Your written quote follows your free 30-minute call.

A memoir of up to 30,000 words takes 8 to 12 weeks, up to 50,000 words 12 to 18 weeks, and up to 120,000 words 18 to 27 weeks. The voice interviews come first, then story interviews, an outline you approve, chapters in batches, and your rounds of changes. Timelines include the rounds of changes for your book’s length. Extra rounds, or more review time on your side, add to it. Need it sooner? Rush delivery is +25%, subject to writer approval and confirmed on your call.

Your memoir is written by a human ghostwriter, with no AI drafting. A person sits in recorded interviews, learns how you talk, and writes prose the people closest to you recognize as yours. Software may help with practical steps such as transcribing recordings, and we tell you where it does. The writing, the choices about what stays, and the voice on the page come from your ghostwriter. Our full approach is in the AuthorWings AI policy.

This conversation happens at the outline stage, not after the draft. Once the living-people review lists everyone named, you decide who to consult, disguise, remove, or keep regardless of their wishes. Some authors send chapters to family before publication. Others change names and identifying details. We record your choices in writing and shape the book around them. The decisions are yours, made with full information, not three weeks before launch.

Sometimes. We read what you have, hold a first interview to hear how you speak, and tell you honestly whether to refine it or start fresh. If the draft is sound and the voice is consistent, we work with it, and the price follows the final length of the manuscript, because your existing pages still need editing and work to match the voice. If it is fragmented, starting over is often faster and cheaper. If it only needs polish, our editing service fits better. You get the answer on your free call.

A memoir ghostwriter writes your story in the first person, in your voice, with your name as the author. A biographer writes about you in the third person, as an outside observer, and is usually credited as the author. Memoir reads as “I remember”; biography reads as “she did.” Many people who come to us want the first-person version. When the subject cannot sit for interviews, a third-person biography can be the better choice, and we will say so.

The voice interviews take the most concentrated time: as long as your book needs, up to 10 hours depending on length. Story interviews follow, in 90-minute sessions, usually one or two a week, at a pace set with you. Extra sessions you ask for beyond that are quoted on your call.

Yes. All interviews happen on Zoom or a comparable platform, scheduled around your time zone, recorded with your consent on both ends. We work with clients across multiple time zones. The only constraint is finding 90-minute windows you can protect on a regular schedule. The interviews are the most demanding part of the process for the author. They are also the only part that cannot be rushed.

Your agreement includes an off-ramp clause, a cancellation clause that sets out exactly what happens if you stop. You receive all drafted work, every interview transcript, the chapter outline and any partial chapters as source files. Any refund depends on the milestone reached, since the writer is paid for completed work. The cancellation terms are written before work starts, so you know your options before you need them.

Yes, and for some memoirs they should. Family and generational memoirs, and memoirs about events shared with another person, often gain from a second voice in selected interviews. We interview each person separately first, then together, so each person’s way of speaking is captured cleanly. The book still has one author on the cover unless you choose otherwise. The second storyteller becomes a source, like a letter or a photograph, woven into your voice.

Sensitive material is common in memoir: abuse, addiction, war, terminal illness, family estrangement, and crimes the author committed or survived. The real question is whether the working relationship is right for material this heavy. We check that on your free call. If the fit is wrong, we say so before any contract and refer you elsewhere. If it is right, your writer stays with you through the hardest parts and writes the scenes you cannot bring yourself to type.

You own them. Every recording, transcript and working document goes to you on final delivery, in its original format and in a backed-up archive. Keep them for the next book or the family archive, or delete them. You can also offer them to a library or oral history archive. Read the donation terms first, as some transfer the rights. We keep a copy only for the retention period in your agreement, then delete it on schedule.

The memoir ghostwriting service covers the writing: voice interviews, story interviews, drafting, and the editing that finishes the manuscript. Cover and interior design, publishing and distribution, and launch marketing are separate, so you only pay for what you want. With a Launch-Ready Bundle, cover, formatting and publishing are included, from $14,839 in total. Or take the finished manuscript and publish it yourself. It is yours in full.

An autobiography aims to cover a whole life, while a memoir follows one thread of it. For us it changes the outline, not the service, and our guide to memoir vs autobiography compares them in full. Writing it yourself? Here is how to choose between your whole life or one part of it.

The same as memoir, because the work is the same: 68¢ a word, from $13,600 for 20,000 words up to 120,000 words. What moves the number is length, not the label. A full autobiography covering eighty years usually needs more recorded hours than a memoir about three, and the price for your length follows from that.

Ask three questions before signing. Has this writer finished a full-length life story, not just written about people? Who owns the recordings and transcripts when the project ends, and is that in writing? What happens if the writer becomes unavailable at chapter nine? Our answer is a reassignment clause and a writer pool, and any company should answer it in writing. The same three questions apply when choosing a ghostwriter for a memoir.